


They Really Were That Dense

by orphan_account



Series: Of Roommates, Knights, Thieves, and General Awkwardness [1]
Category: The Song of the Lioness - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crack, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-18
Updated: 2013-07-18
Packaged: 2017-12-20 15:00:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/888621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A modern AU crack fic where Alanna moves into an apartment building and befriends a group that the landlord ‘affectionately’ calls the Knights. They assume she’s male, and now she has to tell them otherwise. George already knows and tags along for shits and giggles, Jon just wants to get his beauty sleep, and Faithful is her roommate.<br/>Edited 4/7/2016.</p>
            </blockquote>





	They Really Were That Dense

The strip club had been the last straw.

Alanna silently fumed as she made a beeline towards her apartment.

She'd understood the Knights' (as the landlord had so kindly christened the young men) previous endeavors at “super friendly bro bonding.” They'd coerced her into doing all sorts of 'bro things' which, according to them, included watching football together as often as possible, picking up chicks at local bars, and inviting her to an all-male sauna (an adventure she was only able to escape due to a conveniently placed cold).

Reaching her floor, she stalked down the corridor, ignoring George Cooper (neighbor and 'ex'-con, who had taken to camping outside her door waiting for her return) and slammed the door in his face when he started talking, too angry to even listen.

After a moment of appreciation for the satisfying door slam, she yelled “FAITHFUL!” into the depths of her shared apartment. This worked its desired charm, waking up both her room mate and her cat, both of which had been slumbering peacefully on her couch. The two stared at her with similarly distasteful and blank expressions. No matter how she denied it out loud, there were differences between the cat and the human, the main one being that the human grudgingly sat up on the couch and rudely asked her what she wanted, while the cat stalked away to find somewhere where the stupid humans wouldn't bother him.

In colorful terms, Alanna described to Pan “Faithful” Faith the events that had transpired this past evening. Mainly, she gave a lot of attention to the location and the particular stripper the boys had hired when they decided that she needed a lap dance in her life, and how Jon had done nothing to stop any of this, mostly because he had somehow gotten drunk within the first five minutes of their arrival and was too busy laughing.

Faithful listed to this whole tirade, staring owlishly at his friend. When the woman paused for a breath, he interjected in a dead voice that people only seem to achieve at three am or after a life time of practice.

“Well, they think you're a straight dude, so obviously they'd drag you along. What did you expect? Flower crowns and shopping malls?”

Alanna let out a string of quiet interesting swearwords describing what Faithful's mother did and with who she did it with to give birth to this terrible abomination. That speech slowly dissolved into a general tirade.

There was no way that the boys were really so dense as to think she was male. It wasn't like she tried to appear masculine. Men's clothes were comfortable, that's all there was to it. Whenever she could, she used her full name. She usually made sure to drop her pronouns somewhere in the first couple of conversations, or at least wear a revealing shirt or two every once in a while, just in case. Her face was feminine enough, and hair wasn't very manly either, but somehow. Somehow. This was still an issue. 

After roughly ten minutes, spent and exhausted, she plopped down next to the still half-asleep Faithful, leaned back, and squeezing her eyes shut.

“So are you going to tell them? Or are you going to play along some more?” came a quiet voice next to her ear.

Alanna tipped her head to the side and opened one eye, not surprised at all to see George Cooper on her couch for no explainable reason.

She sighed and sat up a bit. “I have no idea,” she said softly. “What do I say? Hey, sorry for not telling you, I am, in fact, a straight cisgender woman and have no idea where you got these delusions?”

A grin gently spread across George's face. “That's always a good start. But you could always parade around the apartment building in a bikini.”

Alanna snorted. “Right. Fat lot of good that'll do me.”

"Worked for me."

"You stumbled over pronouns for an hour and until I explained things to you."

"Hey, your brother's horrifying. As is his 'not friend,'" said George, complete with little air quotations. "And Faithful being a dick really wasn't helping."

"Fuck you, 'catself' is totally a real pronoun."

George let out a series of coughs that sounded sort of like "Furry!"

"How about both of you shut up and help me brainstorm, huh?"

And so they did. Well, Alanna and George did. Faithful decided that now was the perfect time for a nap. After a heated debate over whether Thom, Alanna's brother, should be there and if any dress wearing should be involved, they'd wasted most of their good arguments and had started repeating themselves. By that point, Faithful had gotten up, gotten caffeinated, and decided that it was time to put in his five cents.

“Why don't you ask Jon?” Faithful suggested, pulling on a shirt with the word 'Cat' on it written in purple comic sans. “He knows you're a girl, he's one of the bros, he knows these things.”

George and Alanna had to agree that this was a valid point.

Jon, like George, had found out completely on accident, if under a slightly different situation. It involved a gala, a dress, three muggers, two cans of pepper spray, a broken heel, and a blood pact to never talk of it again. So, of course, Jon's opinion was crucial. It took only a couple of minutes for them to walk upstairs to Jon's apartment. The fact that it was locked and that George had forgotten his lock picks on Alanna's couch put a little damper on their plan, but that was quickly resolved with a lot of yelling for Sleeping Beauty to wake the hell up. Jon, at some point, screamed back, insisting that he needed his beauty sleep.

Thank God the landlord was out of town.

When they'd finally gotten the unofficial leader of the Knights to open the goddamn door, the man made sure to pose regally, making it clear that he was doing them a huge favor by even being awake after the amount of alcohol he had ingested just a couple of hours prior. It was a piece of cake getting him to agree to gather all the boys at his place the day after tomorrow, considering he was still mostly drunk. Jon was generally fairly agreeable, but the trio insisted on getting the thing in writing. Faithful quickly wrote what His Majesty was supposed to do, made His Majesty sign it, hung the note on the fridge, and taped a bottle of Tylenol to it with duct tape.

After all that, the three went back to Alanna and Faithful's place and celebrated their brilliant plan by ordering pizza (the delivery guy obliged them and drew a lion that looked very much like a cat on the box), and ended up all crashing on the couch.

The next day passed by as uneventfully as any day in their apartment building could. George's mother was the only life-changing experience that dropped in on them that day and before Alanna could even register it, she was standing in front of a couch full of men, all of whom were staring at her expectantly.

Gary, Raoul, and the rest of the Knights (it was embarrassing to admit that Alanna couldn't quite remember their names as it was Gary and Raoul she was the closest to) squirmed on the couch, trying to get comfortable. Even Alex had tagged along for this occasion, and was getting in there with the rest of them. Alanna made a mental note that the next time she was going to 'come out of the closet', she'd buy His Majesty a bigger couch first.

Just when the pressure was about to get too much, Jon stumbled into the room with an arm load of beer cans and a hangover. Carefully, he set one down in front of each visitor. When somebody asked what they were for, he just cryptically muttered, “You're going to need it.”

George and Faithful had crammed themselves into an armchair behind Alanna, chuckling gleefully and ready to get this whole thing on video.

Alanna sneezed, and an uneven chorus of “Bless you's” echoed throughout the room.

There was a moment of silence.

Somebody coughed.

Alanna looked behind her at Faithful and George. Faithful gave her a thumbs up, George smiled enthusiastically. She turned to the Knights and briefly made eye contact with Jon, who gave an encouraging nod. All three of them looked like they were enjoying her pain.

She took a deep breath.

“I-” she started.

Jon held up a hand, interrupting her. “Guys, open your beers.”

Alanna stared as the men grabbed the cans and popped them open, perfectly in sync. If they ever decided to quit their jobs, they could probably make decent synchronized swimmers or something.

After they had taken a drink, Jon nodded to Alanna to continue.

“Guys,” Alanna inhaled sharply, looking at their expectant faces. She shouldn't really feel guilty about this, but she does. They're all like puppies, and she'd hate to disappoint them. "Amigos. Bros. Brolicopters. Abroham Lincolns. My mates."

She took another deep breath. If things continued like this, she's start hyperventilating.

“Guys, I'm a girl.”

Four Knights chugged their beers.

Raoul and Gary looked at each other with similar deer-in-the-headlights expressions.

Alex spurted his drink out.

Faithful and George silently convulsed with laughter in the background.

Gary put his can down, and met Alanna's eyes. “If that's who you are inside, then that's who you are. We'll support you every step of the way.”

Raul nodded. “Al, you're our friend no matter what. Do you want us to start using female pronouns, or...?”

The others nodded and offered similar words of support.

Jon had to sit down to contain his giggle fit.

A sound like a dying horse came form behind Alanna. Faithful and George still hadn't stopped laughing.

Alanna threw her hands up in dismay. “No! Guys, I'm cisgender! And straight!”

Somebody gasped. A beer can was crumpled. The laughter in the background started resembling a cow with asthma. Alanna exhaled sharply.

"But your...." One of them waved a hand at her body.

Alanna gritted her teeth. "You know, for a group of people that seem to be relatively chill with gender and sexuality, you guys sure are idiots."

A series of protests rose from the couch. George handed Faithful five bucks. They really were that dense


End file.
